The Demonstration
by mak5258
Summary: Professor Snape convinces Professor Granger to give a demonstration for his Defense class. (Quite fluffy, if I say so myself.)
1. Part 1, Chapter 1

" _If_ you switch places at the table with me for two weeks."

"No deal. I'll take two of your Hogsmeade weekends."

"One week at the table, and one Hogsmeade weekend."

"Two Hogsmeade weekends and a bottle of Ogden's."

"Three Hogsmeade weekends and the run of your top shelf."

"I'll give you _one_ Hogsmeade weekend, and the run of the shelf."

"No deal!"

"One Hogsmeade weekend, the shelf, and the Ogden's."

"Fine."

* * *

Hermione loved her schedule. Arithmancy was an elective course, which meant she had five levels instead of seven. And since none of the sixth years had chosen to carry on after their O.W.L.s, she only had four levels this year. Her classes were small, her students were relatively bright, and she had arranged things so that she only taught in the mornings, leaving the majority of her time for her research and the occasional consultancy.

Snape had asked nicely, so she'd agreed to demonstrate non-regulation dueling for his seventh years. Most of them were going on to be Aurors, so most of their defensive encounters would not follow the English Primary's Dueling Standards. And he had a good point that watching the same person demonstrate over and over wasn't as effective as using several different "good examples" when possible.

Also, she'd helped him perfect the training dummies he used in his classes, and she was curious to see them in action against the students. He'd allowed her free access to them (since she'd done most of the math, after all), and she usually spent a bit of time every weekend practicing against them or tinkering with the spellwork.

The seventh year class was his last of the week, a double-lesson Friday after lunch. She arrived an hour into the class, allowing him ample time to lecture on multiple-opponent dueling and prepare them for the demonstration.

"Perfect timing, Professor Granger," Snape said, nodding to her when she stepped into the class.

It was exactly as it had been in her sixth year, gruesome posters and everything. There were sixteen students in the class, a large group for a N.E.W.T. course, but these children's parents had been in a war. (Hogwarts had begun to see the post-war effect, lots of babies born as people celebrated not dying under Voldemort's brief reign; enrollment was up more than a hundred percent from where it had been when Hermione was a student.)

"Hello," Hermione said, smiling at the familiar faces. She had taught ten of the sixteen, though only four of those ten had carried on to N.E.W.T.-level.

She made her way to the front of the room while the students cleared their things into their bags and the room reorganized itself for the demonstration. Desks shrunk to half size and stacked themselves at the back by the door. A practice dummy came to life at the front of the room, holding its wand out in a ready position. After a moment, a second dummy moved it stand abreast of its twin.

Hermione unclasped her teaching robes and folded them over the back of Snape's chair. Under, she'd worn simple clothes that were easy to move in: Black work-out capris, her running shoes, and a simple t-shirt; things she wouldn't mind horribly if they acquired a scorch mark or two. Her hair, usually in a messy knot on top of her head, had been strangled into a proper ballerina's bun.

Snape raised an eyebrow at her attire, but didn't say anything. Hermione ignored him; he could parade around in Victorian-era buttons and wool as much as he liked, she preferred cotton.

"In non-regulation dueling, as I'm sure you've figured out, there is no bowing, no bell to signal the clock-count. As Aurors, most of your dueling would begin when you announce yourself and your intention, and somebody takes issue with your presence." The students laughed, and Hermione smiled. "Other non-regulation duels may start with an insult or any number of other things. Usually, they just _begin_."

The dummy on the right flicked its wand, sending a Disarming Jinx at her. She dodged it neatly, spinning to the left.

The dummy on the left moved to flank her, so she sent her own Disarming Jinx its way. Knowing the jinx would be dodged, she conjured the little yellow birds she'd pelted after Ron so long ago and sent them towards its face to harry it while she dealt with the dummy on the right. It conjured a snake, she turned it into a spear and sent it back. It split the spear into seven daggers and flung them at her. She deflected the daggers back at the dummy and followed them with a Jelly-Legs jinx. It Vanished the daggers and flopped to the floor when it failed to deflect the jinx.

She turned to the other dummy, guessing that it would've dealt with the birds. She caught sight of a third dummy joining the fight in her peripheral and hit the floor just in time. The orange flash of a badly-cast Stunning Hex flashed overhead, hitting the dummy just regaining its feet from the Jelly-Legs Jinx. The hit dummy flew backwards a few paces, landed hard, and skidded off toward the stacked desks at the back of the room.

While the new dummy was watching to see if its hex hit its mark, Hermione used a Disarming Jinx and a quick Stunning Hex. The dummy fell into a lump near Snape's desk, and Hermione pocketed the wand. She Summoned the wand from the dummy that had wound up at the other end of the room and pocketed that too, since she was being a good example.

The dummy with the birds had to have been set at a lower level than the first. It was trying to deal with the birds by cursing them one at a time, sending little spouts of flame from its wand at the birds as they dive-bombed. It had managed to set its own foot on fire. Taking pity, she blasted it into the nearest wall with a jet of water, Stunned it, and took its wand. The birds immediately set upon the next closest enemy, which turned out to be a fourth dummy that had been creeping up behind her.

At that point, Snape began a running commentary of the things that she or the dummies were doing that the class should be paying attention to. The way she never stood still, the way the dummies tried to flank her without ending up directly opposite each other. If she hadn't had to focus on the _six_ active dummies, she would've taken up her own commentary—not only had he activated more than the three he'd talked about when she'd agreed to demonstrate for him, but he'd ratcheted up the 'competence' level on them, too.

She knocked one down by Summoning one of the shrunken desks, then kept it busy by transfiguring the desk into an angry bull. Since the desks were enchanted to resist the spellwork of anybody but professors, the dummy couldn't simply transfigure the desk into something else or even use _Finite Incantatum_.

One of the dummies knocked the wind out of her with a badly-cast _Expelliarmus_ ; luckily, she kept her wand. It was impossible to tell which dummy had been set to what level of 'competence' since they all looked the same. They all seemed to be at different levels, though the majority of them were toward the more difficult end of the spectrum. (The bastard.)

She trapped one dummy in an overlarge bubble, which bounced around faster and faster as it struggled inside. That became an ongoing hazard for her as well as the dummies. The bubble bounced from wall to ceiling to floor, careening about, rebounding with ridiculous _SPROING!_ noises.

At one point, she round-house kicked one of the dummies and sent it stumbling. She disarmed one dummy only to have it spring up and pin her arms to her sides in a strange bear-hug from behind.

A Disarming Jinx caught her in the back when she was focused on a minor Slicing Hex. She heard Snape begin talking about prioritizing defenses and tried not to second-guess herself—should she have taken the cut and kept her wand? The hex was most commonly used to slice up fruit, after all.

"But Professor," one of the students asked, "isn't the duel over now that she's been disarmed?"

"Does she look disarmed?" Snape countered. Hermione had cast wandless Shield Charms immediately, holding the clumsy domes in place so that they'd reflect what was cast. It was a draining tactic, but she'd built up her stamina with this particular charm during the war.

Three of the five remaining dummies were on the floor before they adapted to her shields, and by then Hermione had managed to get her hands on her wand again. She dodged a curse from one of them, rolled onto her back, and cast a sort of generalized _Levicorpus_. All the dummies—all fifteen of them—and two students who had stepped beyond the line of Snape's protective ward hung from an ankle.

Hermione rolled smoothly to her feet, then made her way through the dangling dummies quickly. She immobilized the dummies and retrieved their wands. She set the students gently back on their feet and urged them back behind the line of the ward with a hand on their shoulder.

All fifteen of the practice dummies had been put to use. When she reached Snape at the front of the classroom, standing behind his desk and facing the students lined up beneath the wall of windows, she smacked him upside the back of the head. A few students let out nervous giggles and one barked out a laugh (quickly smothered behind a hand). Snape raised an eyebrow at her.

"You are switching seats with me at dinner."

He looked like he was going to argue, but she raised an eyebrow back at him and he shrugged. The rest of the lesson passed quickly. Snape lectured a bit more about non-regulation dueling, and then the class broke off into groups of three to practice two-on-one. Two groups of two had a dummy as their third. Hermione circulated the classroom with Snape, providing insights and correcting stances.

* * *

Word of the demonstration spread like the plague. Before dinner was over, all the upper-level students were watching the staff table and whispering. For her part, Hermione didn't much notice it; switching with Snape put her between Sprout and Sinistra instead of between Trelawney and Brewer (the Muggle Studies teacher). They had a lovely conversation that lasted the meal, and nobody predicted her horrible death/sacking/impending baldness even once.

After dinner, she returned a selection of books to the library. Irma told her that the students had been whispering about her, and all the books even vaguely related to the fall of Voldemort had been checked out.

"I don't know what they're more impressed with," Snape said when she met him in his sitting room later, "your prowess against the dummies or that you smacked me in the head and lived."

"You deserved it," she informed him, going on her toes for a better view of the titles on the top shelf of his book case. When they'd first decided they were more-or-less friends, he'd given her permission to borrow any of his books except for the ones on the top shelf. Naturally, the top shelf held everything rare and interesting.

"Oh, I fully expected it. Maybe not in front of the students, though."

"Are you angry?" He hadn't seemed angry, but he was a superb liar.

"No." Well then. "I suppose it's good for the students to see that their professors get along."

"You mean it's acceptable for teachers to have depth and lives? Oh, please. Just give me a moment; you're shattering my illusions."

"You're hilarious."

"Don't be ridiculous. Teachers don't have a sense of humor."


	2. Part 1, Chapter 2

Hermione was back next to Trelawney for breakfast the next morning, but that was fine. Trelawney ate her porridge and read her Quibbler in silence more often than not. She usually missed lunch. It wasn't until dinner that the gloom and doom came about. Hermione usually brought a book (hidden carefully behind the serving dishes so the students wouldn't know she wasn't watching them).

Better, Trelawney was entirely absent from breakfast. Hermione ate her toast and drank her tea, read her paper. Brewer made his appearance just as she was finishing up, and she handed her paper off to him on her way out.

She spent her Saturday morning going over the proof of her submission to _Alchemist Today_ , an essay on arithmancy in alchemy. It would be in the next issue unless she found any major errors. As paranoid about faulty work as she'd ever been, she re-ran all of her calculations and triple-checked her punctuation.

She took lunch with Ginny, catching up a bit and making tentative plans for Christmas. There was a bit of shopping, and then Hermione whiled away the afternoon in the window seat in her sitting room, enjoying the natural light while she read the book she'd chosen from Snape's coveted shelf.

Trelawney was in full bluster at dinner. If she was to be believed, Hermione would soon suffer an awful foot fungus. Nobody, especially men, would want to be near her from the smell of it. The description almost put her off her soup.

"Come along, then, before you contract anything nefarious," Snape said while Hermione was still trying to think of something to say about the foot fungus. The comment didn't surprise her; his hand on her shoulder did.

"Right," she said, choosing to believe it was Trelawney's comments still throwing her off, not how warm his palm was.

She followed Snape to his office, elbows brushing every now and again. She tried to remember if they normally walked close enough to brush elbows or if it was a new development. And why should there be a new development?

"Did you finish the Waverly yet?"

"Mostly."

"Only mostly?"

"I had a lunch date with Ginny."

"Oh, to be able to leave the castle at a whim."

"You can leave whenever you want."

"Head of House," he said, holding the door to his study open for her. (He'd always done that; she remembered that much.) "I have to tell McGonagall before I go anywhere."

"She doesn't let you go?"

"She wants to talk about it. And usually sends me to sweets shops."

"You poor thing." She grinned at him. And he grinned back.


	3. Part 2, Chapter 1

She'd just wanted a glass of water. If she hadn't, she would have been in bed and none of it would have happened. At least not to her. (Or that's what she told herself; probably, they just would have snatched her out of bed if she hadn't already been up.)

She didn't know who they were and she didn't know where they came from. She'd left her wand upstairs in her bedroom, because she wouldn't need it just going down to the kitchen and back.

There was a cracking noise, not like Apparation but like a pane of glass snapping. She screamed, but whoever it was quickly had a Silencing Charm on her. She thrashed, and they had a Body Bind on her just as quickly.

"Let's see now," a man's voice, not particularly high or particularly deep, said calmly. He walked in front of her holding a small photograph, seeming to check the face in the picture against her face. He was tall and broad with rounded shoulders and more muscle than neck. He was bald. "Yep. We got the right one, sir." He was talking to somebody standing behind her. "Adelaide Grant. Ravenclaw House. Her parents will get her Head Girl letter in the morning."

"Stop talking," the man behind her hissed, and something went over Adelaide's eyes. She could sense movement, but couldn't see or hear anything. Then it stopped, and the Body Bind was lifted just in time for her to land in a heap on a hard floor.

She shouted, more at the surprise of impact than anything else, and worked her way to her feet. Somebody was shouting, asking questions and pounding on a wooden door, but whoever it was ran out of steam fairly quickly.

Adelaide looked around, seeing a plain room with shiny black bricks making up the floor and walls. There was a plain wooden door to one side, and the wall directly adjacent to the door was a large window. There was nothing visible through the window, though; it was dark. There was just the hint of another room on the other side, and a vague sort of red light. The room she was in was too bright, lit by the flat fluorescent lights in the ceiling common in Muggle buildings.

"Who are they? Who are you? What are we doing here?" he asked, spinning away from the door and stalking over to her.

Adelaide glared at him, recognizing him immediately. Atticus Porter, Slytherin. He was the obvious choice for Head Boy next year, their seventh year. He was clever and well-liked, and he got good marks. He wore light cotton pajamas and a dressing gown. His brown hair was more rumpled than she had ever seen it, but it looked rumpled the way a model's did in a photo spread selling breakfast tea in a magazine.

"No wait," he said before she could answer his questions. "You're… Grant. Adelaide Grant, right? Ravenclaw."

"Yes." She was oddly self-conscious of her soft pajama shorts and overlarge t-shirt. Her own hair wouldn't look so prettily mussed. It was long and straight and prone to greasiness before she got her morning shower.

"Grabbed you from home, too?"

"Yes. Just now."

"You're Muggle-born, right?"

"Yes," she said, raising her chin defensively, but he shook his head.

"No, I just mean—well, they did magic, right? And you're underage, so it will show up at the Ministry. My birthday's not for another week, but my mum's a witch, so they'll just assume it was her."

"Oh." That was really quite clever. "Well. Yes, I'm Muggle-born and that _would_ have been perfect. But I had my birthday in May. I'm of age."

"Damn."

They chatted for awhile. They'd never been particular friends, but they'd had six years of classes together. Neither of them knew what was going on, though they'd both heard their captives mention that they'd be Head Boy and Head Girl.

"What are we doing here? Why would they take us, specifically?" Adelaide wondered aloud after a long time spent in silence. There had been no signs of life from outside their room. The door was firmly locked. The window didn't break when either of them pounded on it.

"I don't know," Porter said, sitting down against the far wall, opposite the glass. Neither of them wanted to touch the chair that stood at the front of the room, centered in front of the glass and somehow ominous in its plainness. "Does your family have any money? Mine doesn't, but my uncle is an Auror. He has lots of enemies, compared to most people."

"Well, not particularly." And it was especially unlikely that a pair of wizards would abduct her to get money out of her Muggle parents, but she didn't point that out.

Further discussion was interrupted by commotion outside their room. They both dashed to the glass, pressing their foreheads against it and trying to look as far out around the edges as they could.

"Anything?" he asked, and she drew back, shaking her head.

"Nothing."

"Where the _hell_ are we?" he asked, punctuating his words by kicking the door with his heel. It thudded satisfactorily.

She couldn't think of anything to say—she didn't feel much like trying to comfort him, anyway.

A pair of thugs came into view holding a woman between them. Adelaide hadn't seen either of the men before, but they were broad and bald like the one she'd seen at her house had been. The woman was tiny between them, her arms completely engulfed in theirs as they hung onto her. She had curly brown hair, a few strands of gray at her temples, pale skin. She was in pajamas, too—long pajama pants and a camisole tank top. The tank top was a skimpy summer thing, showing off a myriad of small scars across her chest and shoulders, and a large jagged purple line that started over her heart and drove down under her shirt.

The woman twisted just as they began to pass the window, lifting her feet up. The thugs swung forward a bit at the shift in weight, and she brought her bare feet down on the close knee of the thug on her left. He went down hard, wailing, releasing her to grab at his leg. The one that still had her by the arm lurched closer, reaching for her free arm. He didn't grab the arm; instead, she brought it up sharply and punched him in the throat. He stumbled back, gagging, tripping over the one on the ground.

They were swearing. Adelaide put her hand over her mouth to keep herself from shouting out to the woman, sure that if they could hear the commotion beyond the glass they'd be able to hear anything from inside the room. The woman kicked the one with the bad knee in the face, breaking his nose, and while he wailed about that she relieved him of his wand. Somebody—probably more than one person, too—was approaching fast.

The dim red light of the hall was replaced by spell flashes. The exchange was fast and wordless. Adelaide had never seen anything like it. The woman twisted and dodged spells just as much as she used Shield Charms, and she sent spell after spell shooting down the hall out of sight faster than Adelaide could think of incantations.

The thug she'd punched in the throat lumbered in grabbing her around the shoulders and pinning her arms to her sides. She shouted, kicking and flailing. The man was prepared for it now, though, and he didn't drop her. She jerked her head back, smashing his nose, but he held on.

"Cock-juggling _thunder_ cunt!" he screamed, shoving her into the glass hard enough that it rattled. Adelaide and Porter both jumped back from the glass. Adelaide wondered if they could see in, but doubted it—the woman would have seen them, but she didn't react like she had. In fact, her eyes were strangely blank, cold. It sent a shiver down Adelaide's spine.

"Why isn't she in manacles?" another man snarled from out of sight. "I told you to make sure you had her tied up."

"The bitch broke my nose," the thug holding her to the glass grumbled, glaring at the back of her head and shoving her against the glass roughly. The witch just smirked; it was unsettling.

"Imbecile," the snarling man said, coming into view. He was as bald as the others, though a bit less burly. He tugged the woman away from the glass, slapping her hard across the face. She stumbled back, dazed, and he used the moment to open a door and shove her through. He slammed the door and tapped on the wall with his wand, revealing a room identical to the one Adelaide and Porter were in.

They were all quiet for a long moment. The less burly man stared through the glass at the strange witch. The thugs pulled their comrades off the floor, and one of them attempted a few healing spells that didn't seem to work very well.

When it looked like the men were going to clear out, Porter started beating on the window, then the door. None of them even twitched. He shouted at them, but they didn't hear that either.

"They've spelled the room," Adelaide said, guessing. "They can't hear us out there."

"What the hell is going on!" Porter shouted, beginning to pace. He ran out of steam quickly, joining her sitting against the far wall. She stared through the windows at the witch in the opposite room. She was pacing, but it wasn't the panicked strut of Porter—she stalked back and forth past the window like a caged predator, one of the big cats at the zoo.

Adelaide began counting. The woman paced the length of the room forty-nine times, and then she turned away from the window, running her hands though her hair, and walked to the back of the room. She sat back against the wall, sliding down to sit with her knees propped up in front of her. It was then that Adelaide recognized her.

"Oh my god!" she said, turning to Porter. "That's Professor Granger!"

"Professor Granger?" he repeated dumbly, looking at her. "Arithmancy?"

"Yeah. I didn't see it before; she looks so different. But now…" Some of the coldness had leached away while she'd been pacing, and while she certainly didn't look like the professor she was used to—all buttoned up in pretty robes and with her hair put up in a bun, ink perpetually staining her fingers—it was undoubtedly her.

"She looks…" Porter started, but let it trail off. Adelaide glared at him; he'd been about to say something about the professors tits, she just knew it. _Boys_.

The professor was one of her favorites. Arithmancy was a challenging subject, full of calculations and thinking. Professor Granger could work most equations in her sleep, of course. She went on and on about the theory of things, grinning and correcting and guiding. She was pretty in that distant sort of way that teachers are sometimes—she was the youngest professor at Hogwarts by at least fifteen years, but she hid it behind layers of teaching robes. The girls could see it easier than the boys, which was probably the point.

There were rumors from the upper levels that once, years ago, she'd done a Defense demonstration and bested all of Professor Snape's practice dummies even though he'd only told her he'd activate one of them. And then, she'd turned around and bested him, too. Even if the story wasn't true, it made Professor Granger Adelaide's favorite teacher. Easy.

"Something's happening," Porter said, standing up and going close to the glass. After a minute, Adelaide joined him.

A pair of bald men were in Professor Granger's room. They couldn't hear anything that was said inside, or any shouting or spells. There was all of that, though. The men used their wands to force Professor Granger into the chair, which immediately sprouted chains and held her tightly in place. Adelaide shuddered and took a few steps away from the chair in their room.

The thugs looked like they were questioning her. They didn't like the answers she gave, if she was answering them at all. Her eyes had gone cold and empty again.

Something happened down the hall outside their rooms, and the thugs cleared out at a run. Professor Granger struggled against the chains on the chair for a bit, but all she managed to do was make her arm bleed. Frowning, she sat where they'd left her and glared at the door.

The building shook. The glass in Professor Granger's window cracked, fine lines tracing across one corner like a spider web. She grinned like a shark.

"What is this place?" Adelaide moaned. "What's happening? Why are we here?"

Porter still didn't have the answers.

A very long time later, there were footsteps out in the hall. Many pairs of boots walking in lock step. Professor Granger was grinning like a shark again, sitting as far forward as the chains would let her so that she would see whatever, whoever, was coming sooner.

The tall less-burly one came into view first, wand drawn. Then two thugs she hadn't seen before. Then a man she didn't know in handcuffs that attached to cuffs around his ankles with a fine chain. There was another bald man walking directly behind the prisoner with his wand pressed into the back of his neck. Then two more thugs.

The prisoner was vaguely familiar He had shoulder-length hair, black shot through with strands of iron gray, especially at the temples. His nose was large and hooked, and bleeding. Clean-shaven but with signs that he hadn't shaved in awhile, like Adelaide's dad looked when he hadn't shaved over a weekend, scruffy. He was tan, tall, thin. He wore black trousers and a white button-up shirt. His sleeves were folded up to his elbows, showing a gray-black smudge of an old tattoo on one forearm.

"Snape," Porter said, gaping. "That's Professor Snape."

"What the hell is going on?" Adelaide moaned. "Why are there professors here? Why are _we_ here? None of this makes sense."

Professor Snape was different in the same way that Professor Granger was—he was suddenly human without his teaching robes, without the big stone walls of Hogwarts around them to remind her who they were. Where Professor Granger was prettier and weirdly feminine and scarred and cold, Professor Snape was less the Greasy Git and was more man and tall and… They had him chained up like they were afraid he would kill them.

But then, hadn't he killed Albus Dumbledore during the war? He'd been a Death Eater; that was what that tattoo meant, faded now but still present.

That was the strange thing about so many of the professors at Hogwarts. They'd fought in a war. Even the headmistress. It was easy to forget, especially since Binns made it all sound so boring when he covered it in History. But every once in awhile something would come up and it would be mentioned in the _Daily Prophet_ , or some project for a class would have her looking things up in the library and Adelaide would stumble upon back-issues full of articles like _Horror at Hogwarts!_ and wanted posters for people who were Ministry officials now. Or professors at Hogwarts.

The war had been a very difficult thing to explain to her parents. She still didn't know more than the bones of it, though not for lack of trying.

"This has to do with the war," Adelaide said, watching them frog march Professor Snape down the hall. He looked as blank and cold as she'd ever seen him, and, after seeing Professor Granger go cold like that not so long ago, it made her skin crawl. She turned to look at Porter. "This has got to have something to do with the war."

"The war ended _years_ ago," he told her, like she was daft. She glared at him.

"Well what do _you_ think this is about?"

"I've no idea. Why would it be about the war, though?"

"They both played a big part in it, didn't they?"

He just shrugged and went back to watching his Head of House. The professor had caught sight of the broken corner of glass in Professor Granger's window, and it made him smirk. The smirk was as terrifying as Professor Granger's shark grin.

Professor Snape and his entourage disappeared. Everything was quiet for a long time. Adelaide was just beginning to get sleepy, wondering if she should ask Porter to wake her up if anything happened and then have a nap, but then a man—and it could only be Professor Snape—started shouting, screaming. He was being tortured.

Across the hall, Professor Granger was sitting very still in the chair. She flinched every time he started screaming after pausing to draw breath. Her fists were clenched. Her eyes were squeezed shut.

Porter beat on the door for awhile, not that it helped anything. He had subsided, sitting next to her against the wall again, when they dragged Professor Snape in. Professor Granger was struggling against her restraints, presumably because she could see into the hall just as well as they could even if she couldn't see into their room.

Professor Snape wasn't unconscious, but he was limp and twitching. His hair and the neck of his shirt clung to him, wet with some clear liquid too viscus to be water. He wasn't bleeding, but there were curses that could make a man scream without making him bleed. Adelaide had read about them in the assignments for his Defense classes.

"Back," one of the thugs snarled, training his wand on them. Adelaide stepped a bit closer to Porter, and they stood back against the far wall while two other thugs heaved Professor Snape into the chair. The chains sprung out of nowhere, binding him roughly in place.

The thugs left, slamming the door behind them. Silence reigned for a long moment, interrupted only by Professor Snape's harsh breathing. After at least a full minute, his harsh breathing turned into a string of vulgarity muttered under his breath while he tried to shift himself more upright.

"Sir?" Porter asked, standing up a little straighter beside her. Professor Snape froze, going quiet.

"Who's there?"

"Porter, sir. Atticus Porter," Porter said, taking a few steps so that he was in the professor's sight. "And Adelaide Grant, too. From Ravenclaw."

"What the fu—the Heads? Hm." The professor went silent after that, except for some grunting when he forced himself upright. He stared forward, through the glass at Professor Granger in the room across. His face was entirely unreadable.

"Sir, w-what's going on?" Adelaide asked, blushing when it came out a whiny moan. The Defense professor glanced at her, frowning, before his eyes went back to the other professor. Adelaide exchanged a confused look with Porter, but they both knew better than to press him when he was wearing that particular frown.

Professor Snape was slowly turning red, Adelaide noticed. She glanced at Porter again and saw that he'd noticed, too. The professor squeezed his eyes closed, and when he opened them again he looked… resigned.

"Drag me to bedlam," he muttered, then cleared his throat and looked directly at Porter. "Porter, tell me: what happens when Veritaserum is whisked into distilled water immediately out of the brewing cauldron?"

"Sir?" Porter asked, glancing at Adelaide. Professor Snape was a Potions Master, but they only knew that because he'd filled in for Professor Clay once in their third year.

"Veritaserum into distilled water. Grant? Any ideas?"

Adelaide's mind rushed, latching onto the question—finally, something she could answer!—but coming up blank. Veritaserum was a Ministry-controlled potion; she'd only read the theory of it. The ingredients weren't listed, even in their seventh-year Potions textbook. "It…" she tried, but then closed her lips and shook her head. Better to admit to a lack of knowledge than to get the answer wrong in front of Professor Snape.

"Well, against all odds, it gets a bit syrupy," Professor Snape said. He hardly sounded like himself, the deep, even rhythm of his classroom lectures replaced by a gritty sort of resigned snarl. "And its effects are diluted—one can resist the temptation to spout the truth and answer every question fully, but only when one keeps speaking any truth that comes to mind."

"Is that what's all over you?" she asked, then added, "Sir."

"Tried to bloody drown me in the stuff," Professor Snape said, and she half expected him to roll his eyes. Again, Adelaide glanced at Porter. He looked very uncomfortable. "How long have you two been here?" Professor Snape asked, distracting her.

"Not long," Porter answered. "Hours."

"What's happening, sir?" Adelaide asked, begging for an answer with her eyes.

"No idea," Professor Snape said, his eyes roving around the room, noting the door and glass, them, the crack in the glass of Professor Granger's room, and Professor Granger herself.

"Why are we here? Where are we?"

"You two are hostages, I'm sure," he said.

"Hostages!" Adelaide squeaked, earning herself a strange, pitying version of Professor Snape's usual annoyed glare.

"I've yet to work out why _we_ are here, though. They didn't ask me any questions."

Adelaide thought she might be sick, and Porter didn't look much better. Professor Snape didn't notice, though; he was thinking.

"They questioned her earlier," Porter said. "Professor Granger."

"I can see that," Professor Snape replied dryly. Adelaide glanced through the window behind her, noting the spots of blood on Professor Granger's skin and clothes, the spots where she was beginning to swell a bit. "Oh, don't look so worried about her, Grant." His tone was still dry, and Adelaide turned back to see him looking up at her, almost amused. "Our Arithmancy professor has survived worse than a bit of amateurish _questioning_."

His screaming hadn't sounded like 'amateurish questioning,' but Adelaide didn't want to press the point.

"She can't see through to us, but she can see the hall," he said. Adelaide glanced at Porter, who was nodding. She thought Professor Snape might just be talking for the sake of the potion in his system, though. "They snatched the two of you up first, but didn't so much as tie you up. They made her disappear from her own home, which is a feat in and of itself. Then they started in on her, but I suppose I interrupted."

"Was it you that made the whole building shake, sir?" Porter asked.

"Hm, probably," Professor Snape responded absently. He cocked his head to one side, and the room began to shake. Adelaide put her hands over her ears, feeling like her ear drums were quaking in time to a heartbeat that wasn't hers. Across the hall, Professor Granger was smiling her shark's grin again, and then she cocked her head to one side, too, and the shuddering intensified. The cracks in her window grew, slowly inching further across the pane.

The thugs flooded the hall, bursting through Professor Granger's door. The tallest of them pointed his wand at the window, sealing up one crack after another. He wasn't able to keep up with it, though.

One of them finally Stupefied Professor Granger, and the thrumming faded. A moment later, the wizards burst into their room, and one of the thugs slugged Professor Snape across the face. Professor Snape actually laughed, even as he turned his head to spit blood on the floor.

"Where is he?" the wizard bellowed, getting in Professor Snape's face. The other thugs had wands trained on Adelaide and Porter; Adelaide was sure she'd fall over her knees were shaking so badly. "Where is Harry Potter?"

"Potter?" Professor Snape repeated. He sounded like they were discussing football and the thug had suggested an unlikely team had just won a match.

" _Potter_ ," the man snarled. "She said it. 'He always comes for me.' So where is he?"

Professor Snape actually threw his head back and laughed. "Potter—" he started, then trailed off into more mocking laughter. The thug looked like he was about to hit the professor again. "You've been reading Rita Skeeter, asshole. It has always worked the other way. Potter runs off and gets in trouble, then _she_ goes in after him and gets him out."

"No. He was the Chosen One. He defeated Lord Voldemort."

"Of course he did."

The thug looked like he was trying to come to terms with something beyond his comprehension—like he'd just been told the sun was actually purple and had it proven to him.

"Then who did she think was coming after her?"

" _Me_ ," Professor Snape snarled, and suddenly he was on his feet. The thug's wand clattered to the floor. Professor Snape had his hands around the man's neck, and the man struggled and thrashed, his fingers prying at Professor Snape's fingers, his eyes going wide and buggy. The thugs who had wands pointed at Adelaide and Porter were too busy staring, too surprised, to realize they had hostages.

Adelaide glanced across and saw that Professor Granger had her hands pressed to the glass of her window. The window was shuddering in time to that heartbeat again, the cracks crawling across the pane more quickly.

The thug Professor Snape was strangling went limp, and the professor let him drop. The wand on the floor jumped to Professor Snape's hand, and the other two thugs seemed to remember they had wands, too. Not that it did them any good.

Suddenly, it made much more sense why Professor Snape had turned his back and stalked away when Professor Alexander suggested he stand in for a demonstration during the Dueling Club.

Two-on-one, and the professor hardly seemed to register the challenge.

"Stay behind me," Professor Snape growled at them, handing them each a wand that had belonged to a fallen thug. Adelaide clutched the unfriendly bit of wood tight in her fist, but it didn't lend much comfort.

Carefully, the two of them stayed behind the professor. He went out the open door, looking up and down the hallway. There were six thugs there, two of them looking on as Professor Granger wandlessly broke through the warded glass. The other four were actively trying to stop her from escaping. Professor Snape made quick work or all of them, laying them flat just in time for Professor Granger to finally break through. She smiled her shark grin when she saw Professor Snape, waving her hand and calling their wands off the floor to her. She chose one and pocketed the rest, then blinked when she saw Adelaide and Porter. Adelaide blushed, feeling for a moment like she'd been caught out of bed.

"What the devil is going on?" Professor Granger asked. She sounded so much like the proper Arithmancy professor that Adelaide almost cried. She had a headache, too.

"No idea," Professor Snape said, looking up and down the hallway before setting off to the left.

"Are you alright?" Professor Granger asked gently, looking them over while Professor Snape led on.

"We're fine, Professor," Porter said. He sounded as shell-shocked as she felt.

"Hm," Professor Granger said. "We'll get you checked out anyway."

They were shuffled on ahead, so that Professor Snape was in the lead and Professor Granger behind them. It took Adelaide two turns and a sprint down a hallway with many doors to realize that the professors had taken up protective positions around them like they were children.


	4. Part 2, Chapter 2

Adelaide had never been to the Ministry of Magic before, but she recognized it anyway. There were enough pictures of the atrium in the _Prophet_ that it was hard to mistake.

There was a witch behind a desk near the entrance, a little queue in front of her where people were waiting to have their wands weighed. She stood up when she saw them, raising a hand to stop Professor Snape, but a single look from him had her sitting behind her desk again. The witch just looked after them, eyes wide, and didn't say a thing about Professor Granger's pocket full of wands.

They were the only ones in the elevator. They stopped at a few floors, the pleasant voice announcing the different offices, but everybody who'd been waiting for the lift decided to wait for the next one.

"Hopkirk," Professor Snape barked the moment they left the elevator, the pleasant voice still telling them they'd arrived at the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.

"Snape!" a man in Auror's robes yelped, turning to them so quickly he spilled tea on himself.

"Your _incompetence_ continues to astound," Professor Snape said. There was something comforting about the professor at his infuriated best. He'd been truly frightening in that room with the chair, magical and physical violence seeming to come to him so easily.

"You found her," Hopkirk said, smiling like he was trying to ignore the way Professor Snape was sneering at him. "Never doubted you for a moment. And who are these?"

" _These_ ," Professor Snape snarled, "are Adelaide Grant and Atticus Porter. Next year's Head students at Hogwarts."

"I see," Hopkirk said, though he clearly didn't. He looked like he might have assumed Professor Snape had brought them along for the experience.

"They had been kidnapped as well as Professor Granger," Professor Snape said. "Or hadn't you noticed? See how the three of them are in their pajamas?"

"Mum," Adelaide said, looking away from the professor and Auror for the first time only to see her mother sitting in a chair a few cubicles over. She was dressed, but her hair was a mess and she was wearing two different shoes.

" _Adelaide_ ," her mum said, jumping up and running to her. Adelaide grabbed her and held on, feeling safe for the first time all day. Everyone in the office was staring, but it didn't matter.

"Dad!" Porter said.

" _You were so concerned with finding your missing 'war hero' before your boss noticed she'd disappeared on your watch that you_ missed _two_ children _… disappearing_ ," Professor Snape hissed.

"Professors," Hopkirk said, his tea clenched in his hands, "perhaps you'd be so kind as to step into my office?"

Professor Snape shouldered past him into one of the offices on the far wall.

"Auror Bones," Professor Granger said, voice just as calm and authoritative as it was in the classroom even though they were nowhere near her classroom, "would you be so kind as to call a mediwitch to have these two checked."

"Of course, Professor Granger," the other Auror said, standing and guiding Adelaide, her mother, Porter, and his parents toward what looked like a conference room. "Would any of you like anything to eat? Anything to drink?"

Adelaide shook her head; she was too queasy from relief to eat. Porter seemed to be the same way, but his mother requested some tea. While they waited for the Auror to get it for her, Adelaide looked back and saw Professor Granger join Auror Hopkirk and Professor Snape in the office, closing the door gently behind her. Adelaide had seen that same dead coldness in her eyes again, though.


	5. Part 3, Chapter 1

Severus wasn't a demonstrative man. He knew that. The truth of his affection for somebody could be read more by his making an effort not to actively scowl at them rather than anything so overt as actually saying he cared about them.

Hermione Granger, for instance. He'd acknowledged to himself years ago that he loved her. He'd never said as much to her, of course. But he'd let her get away with smacking him upside the head in front of the students. And, more significantly, he'd returned from the Potions symposium he'd been looking forward to for months before it had even begun just because she was missing.

He'd promised her, after all. That was one thing he'd been explicit about. He would always go after her. It had been a joke when he'd said it, the pair of them talking about the many times he'd saved her when she was his student. He hadn't been joking, though. And from what her captors had let slip while they were trying to get information out of him, she'd known he hadn't been joking.

And that was what was bothering him.

It was almost exactly a year ago that she'd been taken. It was the summer break, and most of the professors had cleared out of Hogwarts. He hadn't booked a trip this year, academic or otherwise.

They'd never truly unearthed the plot behind it.

Oh, all involved had been captured. Hermione had taken an active role in their trials. The lot of them had shown remarkable solidarity in their silence, however. The Ministry would never approve forceful Legilimency, even on criminals, not in this day and age, and so the root of it remained unsolved. It bothered him.

Almost exactly a year ago, Hermione had been taken from her home, her wards shredded quickly and violently. She'd been abducted, beaten, tied to a chair. Students had been taken from their homes to be used as hostages against her. She had moved after that—she'd sold her private residence and packed all her worldly possessions into the little beaded bag she'd had during the war, and she'd taken up residence at Hogwarts.

Severus had been on vacation when Hermione had been taken. he'd left almost as soon as the students had, Portkey scheduled for the moment his yearly duties ended. A little unnamed island in the Mediterranean had been hosting a potioneers' conference and he'd booked his ticket ages ago, his first true vacation in much too long. He'd spent a week on a beach, going brown as a nut (something Hermione had found hilarious when she'd first learned that he tended to tan instead of burn, considering how pale he was) and drinking really good wine. The day the conference was set to begin, he'd received a letter from the Aurory requesting his help. Their star Auror, Potter, had gone on vacation and Hermione Granger was missing.

He'd scrapped his plans for the conference, of course. And he'd found her. Some thugs had tried to drown him in diluted Veritaserum (the only thing available on the open market, true Veritaserum being a controlled substance), and then he'd found a few students they hadn't even known were missing, and then he'd got in a proper fight.

Hermione had spent the school year fussing over the students. She'd checked in on them without their knowing. She was almost compulsive about it. And all the time she'd insisted she was fine, she'd been through worse, she'd be alright.

Physically, she was fine. Emotionally? Mentally? He worried about her.

It had started when she'd first returned to Hogwarts to teach. They'd become fast friends, which had been absurd at first. She had daily tiffs with Trelawney, which had immediately endeared her to him. She was also brilliant, and she had a wicked mouth on her when she didn't think anybody was listening. She was passionate. She constantly surprised him.

He'd fallen in love with her.

He hadn't realized how deep he was in until he'd received that owl from the Ministry. As if they just needed a bit of help covering a gaff before the boss got back and realized they'd misplaced his best friend. He'd felt sick.

And now it was summer again. She wasn't leaving; she didn't have anyplace to go. No place was safer than Hogwarts, they said, but he didn't want to be apart from her. And, truly, his home was safer than Hogwarts. He lived there, for one. He'd throw himself between her and an attacker if he had to.

He was a besotted idiot.

"Professor Granger?" He hadn't consciously left his rooms, but he found himself knocking at her office door and looking in.

"Oh," she said, voice flat. "Hello, Severus."

"Hermione," he said in greeting, stepping into the office and closing the door behind him. She either didn't notice or didn't attribute any significance to it. "I'd had a thought."

"Oh?" she asked, some life returning to her. Her eyes sparkled with humor, some quip about thinking being a difficult thing for him no doubt on the tip of her tongue.

"Would you like to spend the summer at my home?"

He hadn't actually thought out how he was going to ask her. He hadn't actually thought behind the initial idea of it. The thought had barely formed and he'd already been knocking at her office door.

"Your…?"

"My home," he said. "I bought a cottage out in the country after the war. It's Unpolottable. "

He wondered if he should make it clear that he had three bedrooms in the place. One of them had his bed in it, one of them was set up as his office, and the last one had been intended as a guest room but had ended up as storage. It would be easy enough to clear the boxes out of the third room and put a bed in it for her.

"Yes, please," she said, her voice surprisingly quiet, before he could begin rambling about the bedrooms.

"I was going to leave tomorrow after breakfast, if that is amenable to you?"

"Yes," she said. Her eyes were shining, and he wasn't sure what to make of it. "Thank you, Severus."

"Of course."

He left her office before he could bollocks it up.


End file.
